This article addresses the ways in which museum practice has grown or shifted in the ways it thinks about, implements, and uses visitor research. A brief overview of the role of government policies, funders, and theorists and thinkers in the field of museum practice provides a background upon which current practitioners think about the role and value of visitor studies. The vision of the future for museum evaluation includes thoughtful discussions about what is worth evaluating, the role of evaluation in interpretive planning, and the problem of sharing and using lessons learned in evaluations across the field. (Contains 26 notes.)